A Closer Look

Jan. 25, 2001

TEAM COMPETITION
For more than two decades the OU men have opened their season at the Rocky Mountain Open, hosted by the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo. In the past 15 years of Rocky Mountain attendance the Sooners have claimed the top spot only once, in 1991, the year they last went on to claim the NCAA title. Hopefully their outstanding January 19 debut performance will prove as fortuitous.

OU dominated the Rocky Mountain field, topping conference rivals Nebraska, Air Force and Arizona State (club team) to take the title with a whooping nine-point-plus margin (OU 209.75, second-place Nebraska 200.05).

The Sooners began their 2001 season on rings, perhaps OU's most improved event from last season. Oklahoma's dominance of the meet was immediately apparent with all six OU team members, plus exhibition performer Brendan O'Neil, earning finals berths (the top eight scores qualify gymnasts to finals).

"That was really exciting for me," second year head coach Mark Williams raved of his team's rings feat. "Especially since rings was an event we struggled with last year. Over the summer the guys really addressed the new strength requirements. They worked really hard to get better, particularly Brett Covey, who earned a 9.3, the highest prelim total in the meet."

Covey, who performed the only 10.0 Start Value (maximum score) routine of the night on rings, didn't even make the Sooner's 2000 NCAA squad, proving his summer strength-fest was well worth the effort. "His hard work showed," Williams said. "He performed a 10.0 set with very few errors."

Moving to floor, the Sooners struggled slightly, but in the end anchor O'Neil came through for his team, earning a meet-high 9.45. But that upward swing didn't last long.

Pommel horse was a "disaster," according to coach Williams, with errors from every Sooner athlete. "No question," Williams admitted, "the wheels fell of on pommel horse. Things had been going so well [on the first two events] but the reality of the earlyness of the season hit home on horse."

Still, Williams isn't worried about his team's overall pommels prowess. "That was just an anomaly," he assures. "A few days before the meet we hit six-for-six in an intrasquad event."

Despite the pommel horse disaster, which cost the team "two-three points, easy," according to Williams, the Sooners continued to widen their lead as they moved to high bar.

Competing with a makeshift line-up due to injury -- junior Everette Bierker (bruised ribs) and sophomore Josh Landis (shoulder strain) had to be taken out of the order a few days before the meet, while sophomore Shannon Carrion withdrew at the last minute after spraining his ankle in warm-ups -- the Sooners started with David Johnston, who hadn't even had a routine on pipe until a few days before the Open.

Johnston, a junior, came through with flying colors to start things off with a solid set. "I have to really commend David," Williams said. "He just started to put things together two or three days before the meet and he did an outstanding job for us. He even qualified to finals.

"High bar overall was OK. It was better than we'd done in some of our intrasquads leading up to the season, but we still didn't have great performances from everyone. This is one event I expect to see real progress made through the course of the year."

Vault was a conservative effort for the Sooners. With just two events to go and a nearly insurmountable lead, Williams took no chances with his squad, which was already struggling with injury to several key players.

Freshman standout Jock Stevens, recovering from a scary high bar crash (the bar broke in mid-swing, resulting in hand and mouth injuries), played it safe with a Kasamatsu 1/2 (he's capable of a handspring double front) but still managed to tie fellow freshman David Iammetteo for the highest vault score (9.05).

The event wasn't as kind to senior Gabe Hansen, who led the all-around race after four events until a dismal 7.2 vault pushed him behind '99 NCAA champ Jason Hardabura (Nebraska) in the individual standings.

Hansen, who ended the night second in the all-around (50.05), redeemed himself on parallel bars with a team-high score of 8.75. But Hansen's solid effort was the only real bright spot on the Sooner's final event, where injury and fatigue took its toll.

The marathon meet lasted ended near midnight (Oklahoma time), and the Sooners day had started pre-dawn at 4:30 a.m., when they left Oklahoma. "You could tell they were wearing down throughout the night. It was just a really long day," Williams said. "By parallel bars the strain was showing."

With victory assured before the event began, Williams continued to play it safe, competing with only five athletes (traditionally six team members compete on each event, with the top four scores counting towards the total), one of whom, Carrion, was unable to perform a dismount due to injury.

"I was a little disappointed to finish the meet with a poor showing on our last event," said Williams, "but at that point it was already determined [that we would win] so the motivation factor wasn't as high as it would have been if the meet had been closer. Considering some of the struggles we had throughout the competition, to finish where we did score-wise is a real accomplishment. I'm very happy with that but there's still plenty of room for improvement.

"I think we've adjusted fairly quickly to the radical new scoring system and we certainly performed well enough to establish ourselves among the country's top three teams, which was our goal. But we've still got lots of work to do and I expect to see improvement each weekend."

EVENT FINALS
A well-rested group of Sooners returned to the Air Force Academy for the Rocky Mountain Open event finals competition, January 20, where the Sooners pulled off the unprecedented feat of sweeping the finals, taking top honors on each of the six events.

"Finals ended up being another team event for us," head coach Mark Williams said proudly. "We dominated. I was actually more excited about the team's performance during finals than during the team event. The guys were sharper. They had a bit more energy. They were just better. We had at least two or three guys on every event and the champion on each event. That tells me that we have guys that are going to compete well not only as a team, but also as individuals, against the best guys in the country."

The Sooners first win came on floor where team captain Brendan O'Neil (senior) bested his prelim total to score 9.475 with his 9.8 Start Value set (2-1/2, punch, punch full). "To score a 9.475 with this new Code of Points in the first meet of the year is quite a feat," Williams said. O'Neil's freshman teammate, Jock Stevens, was a close second with a 9.45 (front full, front layout, double front combination).

On pommel horse Josh Landis, competing with a strained shoulder, earned top honors with a 9.15 for his difficulty-packed (9.9 Start Value) routine. Second and third also belonged to OU with Daniel Furney (sophomore) and Steve Van Etten (senior) earning 8.95 and 8.8, respectively.

Rings went to sophomore Brett Covey who competed for the Sooners only twice in the 2000 season. Covey, the only performer with a 10.0 Start Value set, wowed with his super strength (Azarian cross, pull out to Maltese) and earned a 9.35 to top teammate Shannon Carrion (second with a 9.2).

After three straight Sooner wins dreams of a sweep began to excite the squad. "It got to be motivational," Williams said. "They wanted to keep the streak going. They wanted to win them all."

Competing with a broken thumb, Stevens obliged on vault when he pulled out a solid Kasamatsu full (9.25) to make up for low Sooner scores early in the line-up. Furney put together a bonus rich parallel bar set (Peach to giant double back) to take top honors there, while seniors Van Etten (Stalder immediate Tkatchev, one arm full, full, Stalder full) and Gabe Hansen (layout Kovacs) closed out the day with a one-two high bar punch.

"What's amazing is that it wasn't just the fact that we won each event, but that we had a different person win each event," Williams raved. "We have a lot of balance on the team. We're not relying on one guy to make or break the squad."

University of Oklahoma Athletics

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